Slime Squisher
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Ask fellow adventurers how to stay alive in the deep, dark, dangerous dungeon below, or share your own accumulated wisdom.
Slime Squisher
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KoboldLord wrote:I'm also morbidly curious now as to how Shatter is abusable for 'stealth tricks'. It's about as stealthy as the Kool-Aid Man smashing through the walls and running through the room
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KoboldLord wrote:I'm also morbidly curious now as to how Shatter is abusable for 'stealth tricks'. It's about as stealthy as the Kool-Aid Man smashing through the walls and running through the room
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Poncheis wrote:Is training a ranged weapon ALWAYS good for a melee character? If not, why isn't it?
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KoboldLord wrote:I'm also morbidly curious now as to how Shatter is abusable for 'stealth tricks'. It's about as stealthy as the Kool-Aid Man smashing through the walls and running through the room
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mikee wrote:Sadly, many inexperienced players choose not to follow it because it explicitly says not to use shields, and people who don't know better tell them to use shields no matter what.
KoboldLord wrote:I'm also morbidly curious now as to how Shatter is abusable for 'stealth tricks'. It's about as stealthy as the Kool-Aid Man smashing through the walls and running through the room
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KoboldLord wrote:I'm also morbidly curious now as to how Shatter is abusable for 'stealth tricks'. It's about as stealthy as the Kool-Aid Man smashing through the walls and running through the room
Crypt Cleanser
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KoboldLord wrote:it honestly isn't a very good guide.
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bobross419 wrote:mikee wrote:Sadly, many inexperienced players choose not to follow it because it explicitly says not to use shields, and people who don't know better tell them to use shields no matter what.
Tried following this advice by running an Exe Axe and damn near got myself killed in melee. I'll stick to the Shield and One Hander until I hit the point in the game where I'm facing regular Torment and Hellfire, thank you very much.
Blades Runner
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mikee wrote:Sadly, many inexperienced players choose not to follow it because it explicitly says not to use shields, and people who don't know better tell them to use shields no matter what.
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slowcar wrote:mikee wrote:Sadly, many inexperienced players choose not to follow it because it explicitly says not to use shields, and people who don't know better tell them to use shields no matter what.
mainly because shields are good to have, at least for the normal game. and that's what inexperienced players focus on...
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mikee wrote:Assuming you're someone who advocates shield use, do you mind if I quiz you?
1) Do you know what affects blocking chance with a shield?
2) How much do shields slow attack speed? How much shield skill is needed to reduce/eliminate that penalty?
3) How much damage per turn can you expect to be giving up if you use one handed weapons instead of two?
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Jeremiah wrote:I think one thing that makes shields attractive to new and intermediate players is that quite aside from the issue of how much damage they prevent, they are also a good source of resistances, and are often the only available source of something useful like rPois or rElec.
My current character wouldn't even have considered going to Hell or Pan, and would probably have had a lot of trouble in Zot if I hadn't found a randart large shield with rF++, and many of my other characters have had similar experiences.
It is often very hard to find the resistances you 'need' - and although these often aren't really necessary (for a great player), the less experienced you are as a player the more you rely on having them - and a shield is one more way to get them.
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it eliminates a lot more damage from incoming sources than the damage you lose, especially if several enemies are hitting you at once.
as a fighter who does not train magic skills you usually have enough xp for the few points of shield skill. and if you are at max level and hack through fiends and mummies you can wield your executioner axe, the xp spent for shields at 15 will just be a few dozen enemies worth of xp, but a full game worth of survival.
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mikee wrote:bobross419 wrote:mikee wrote:Sadly, many inexperienced players choose not to follow it because it explicitly says not to use shields, and people who don't know better tell them to use shields no matter what.
Tried following this advice by running an Exe Axe and damn near got myself killed in melee. I'll stick to the Shield and One Hander until I hit the point in the game where I'm facing regular Torment and Hellfire, thank you very much.
At what skill level were you using it? Are you familiar with how attack delay works and how that should affect your weapon selection? What armour were you wearing, and how much AC did you have?
My mdfi guide: SKILLS: 1) Turn off everything except fighting, axes, and armour. For the whole game. Drop your starting shield.
STATS: Raise Int to 8, then raise Str. SPELLS: Don't cast these.
GODS: Okawaru is best (in that order). WEAPONS: Stick with a hand axe until around 10 skill, depending on how comfortable you are with slow attacks. Upgrade to a broad or war axe, then a battleaxe, then an exec axe, as soon as your delay is about 12 or better.
KoboldLord wrote:I'm also morbidly curious now as to how Shatter is abusable for 'stealth tricks'. It's about as stealthy as the Kool-Aid Man smashing through the walls and running through the room
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bobross419 wrote:Best part of a guide is explaining WHY a person should make the choice that you suggest. So far in the guide there was no explanation and in this thread all you've done is ask questions and have some snarky comment about Octopodes. You've put in absolutely 0 work in backing up your claims where as multiple people have cited examples from in game about the benefits of a shield during early-mid-late game.
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This is the question I think most people would have trouble with because the formula for damage in melee is rather complicated and they would rather not deal with it. I think not dealing with it is perfectly fine as long as you're not giving advice that it's relevant for. In any case...
For the record, base damage and slaying are not the same for dpt calculation, even though they're similar overall. Also, you'd want to use a demon blade for comparison (your 3 is from double sword vs. triple sword?). Well, here are two weapons I see come up a lot while discussing this topic: demon whip and executioner's axe. If you do the calculation you will see that with maxed melee skills and no brands, dwhips and exec axes do roughly the same damage against 0 ac targets. However, most targets have AC (for example, a stone giant has 12. an orb of fire has 20), and the exec axe will perform much better against them. Most brands will also improve the exec axe's damage more than they will the demon whip's. I hope it's not too much to ask that someone knows this when giving advice about weapons.
This is not really true. Blocking chance decreasing significantly against multiple opponents. This information is in the link you sent me. So... the SH stat is actually weaker (less reliable) than AC or EV. But the number can be bigger so it is more exciting I guess.
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cerebovssquire wrote:Sorry, but saying "0 backup" and "snarky comments" is kinda out of place regarding this. I don't see one place where this isn't understandable.
KoboldLord wrote:I'm also morbidly curious now as to how Shatter is abusable for 'stealth tricks'. It's about as stealthy as the Kool-Aid Man smashing through the walls and running through the room
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mikee wrote:bobross419: Those questions and the analogy to octopodes were all made in good faith. I was asking you those questions as follow-up to try and see what was causing the problem. My goal here is to help others play better, not to inflate my own ego. My understanding is that something else may have gone wrong or you were just unlucky with your situation. You are very quick to blame me for troubles in your game.
KoboldLord wrote:I'm also morbidly curious now as to how Shatter is abusable for 'stealth tricks'. It's about as stealthy as the Kool-Aid Man smashing through the walls and running through the room
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KoboldLord wrote: In your own example, the executioner's axe only deals yield roughly +8 dpt over the demon whip against a stone giant, an improvement of only 27%. Overkill is wasted, so the same stone giant dies in two to four units of time in each case. The demon whip is at most one unit of time behind the executioner's axe, and only against particular stone giants that happen to have, say, 91hp instead of 90.
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bobross419 wrote:mikee wrote:bobross419: Those questions and the analogy to octopodes were all made in good faith. I was asking you those questions as follow-up to try and see what was causing the problem. My goal here is to help others play better, not to inflate my own ego. My understanding is that something else may have gone wrong or you were just unlucky with your situation. You are very quick to blame me for troubles in your game.
mikee, I'm sure you can understand how your statements could be construed as confrontational considering that tone doesn't translate into text. Sorry if I came off like an ass myself, but I'm still of the opinion that pointing noobs to use 2h over 1h+Shield for a 3 rune game isn't the best advice. Too many beers at this point to have an actual debate about it, so I'll just let it drop and see how the rest of the thread plays out
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mikee wrote: So in short, more dpt is always good regardless of the target.
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slowcar wrote:mikee wrote: So in short, more dpt is always good regardless of the target.
Less incoming dpt is always good.
in your calculations you assume the appropriate skill for the weapon. when you have axe skill 26 (and the appropriate exec axe) the game is 3/4 over. wielding 2h weapons without sufficient skill is sometimes a death sentence.
when i go with axes i usually use a 1h axe + buckler/shield, continue to train axes skill and switch to a 2h weapon much later (not necessarily at min delay). added benefit: you can switch back to the shield to close in to a yaktaur pack etc.
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mikee wrote:No, it doesn't work that way. These are just expected values (means). Melee damage and AC reduction both use random2, and the formula itself for player melee is highly randomized. It's not too uncommon to do 0 damage to something you are expecting to one-shot. So in short, more dpt is always good regardless of the target.
cerebovssquire wrote:In your calculations you assume the appropriate skill for the shield. I see "exceptional SH" "reliably shut down nearly all damage sources" etc. pp. and this isn't going to be a buckler. It's more of a large shield with at least 20 skill so you don't suffer to severely or not at all from penalties. And that isn't saving EXP.
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That executioner's axe will also get bad streaks, but we can't very well cherry-pick the bad streaks for the axe and compare them to cherry-picked good streaks for the whip, now can we?
On average, the whip will lag at most one attack behind the axe until you start running into very high armor or hit points values, and the shield only has to pick off a few attacks to compensate.
Maximizing the left half of the ratio is good, but minimizing the right half is sometimes more efficient. You already concede this point by assuming that the character in question is using heavy armor; heavy armor's accuracy malus can and will reduce your damage output. The trade is obviously worth it in the case of heavy armor, in spite of the existence of some attacks heavy armor doesn't mitigate, while shields are more situational.
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mikee wrote:It seems there have been some distractions involving my degenerate character and my many disconducts. These are irrelevant, so I will summarize and ignore further nonsense.
mikee wrote:1) I am not advocating mindlessly following my advice re: axes. See my first post in this thread for my opinion of mindless behavior. Of course, if you find a dwhip or a shield of resistance on d:3, go ahead and use it.
mikee wrote:2) A mdfi has a choice between using two-handed weapons or a shield and a one-handed weapon. Both choices cannot be optimal.
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mikee wrote:4a) Contrary to popular(?) belief, a shield is not very effective against multiple opponents, and so 4) is still true even in that case.
KoboldLord wrote:I'm also morbidly curious now as to how Shatter is abusable for 'stealth tricks'. It's about as stealthy as the Kool-Aid Man smashing through the walls and running through the room
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minmay wrote:bobross419 wrote:Unfortunately, I've rolled back to .9 so I can't give the specifics of that character 100%, but I think that weapon delay might have been changed in trunk. When I tested the Exe delay at 27 Fighting/Armor/Axe my delay was 1.0 everytime. Was wearing plate mail (-6 EV) and had mid-20s STR so that shouldn't have had an effect.
Minimum delay (which you will be at with 26 Axes, no matter how big your body armour penalty) is still 0.7. Are you sure you had show_game_turns on and weren't just looking at the turn count?
KoboldLord wrote:I'm also morbidly curious now as to how Shatter is abusable for 'stealth tricks'. It's about as stealthy as the Kool-Aid Man smashing through the walls and running through the room
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vulturesrow wrote:1) I couldnt find anything in the knowledge bot but I could be using the wrong search terms or might not be understanding something I did read. One thing I'm trying to get a handle is the interplay between armor and attacks, referring specifically to when you get the message saying "Your X armor prevented your attack". Is there a formual somewhere for this? Is it affected at all by your weapons skill or is it completely indpendent?
edit: I did find the entry on AEVP but my understanding is that is just applied to hit or miss...is there something extra that triggers the armor blocking your attack message?
KoboldLord wrote:I'm also morbidly curious now as to how Shatter is abusable for 'stealth tricks'. It's about as stealthy as the Kool-Aid Man smashing through the walls and running through the room
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bobross419 wrote:For an easy intro into Melee you can't go wrong with TrBe (or TrMo especially in .10). You can basically hold down Tab until D:4 with these guys. Things do start to get hairy about the time you are clearing Lair.
MiBe is great also. Very solid melee base that is capable of using much more armor than the Troll.
Shatari wrote:I traded a goat for a Nintendo DS XL, and a ton of games.
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Jabberwocky wrote:bobross419 wrote:For an easy intro into Melee you can't go wrong with TrBe (or TrMo especially in .10). You can basically hold down Tab until D:4 with these guys. Things do start to get hairy about the time you are clearing Lair.
MiBe is great also. Very solid melee base that is capable of using much more armor than the Troll.
With multiple TrMo in .9 I've tabbed my way all the way to Orc 3, I don't know why you're saying you can hold down tab in til D:4. They are what I would recommend as a starting melee build.
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